Thread: Missions...

Hey Rose,

I think a couple of the most useful objects we created were things like tents, towers and barrels. This way you could turn a 'dead' area in a map into an objective area pretty easily. Sarc may have that stuff. I may have lost it. Most of the objects I created were office- or airport-related stuff for a map that I was working on.

I think you're barking up the wrong tree here since few people still play GR around here (better to ask at GR.net), but here are my thoughts:

1. I agree with you on using less-used maps. There should be several full, high-quality maps out there now: Outpost, Mosque, Farm, Ossetian (oldie but a goodie).

2. Download and check out a single player mission pack called Reciprocity. Unfortunately he uses lots of hidden actors so they can't be used in Coop. There are a couple things that I like about the few I've played:

a. Working with friendly units, though they tend to do it in an escort manner whereas I think missions where you coordinate assaults independent of friendly units would be cool. (ie - Bravo is taking down objective B so you need to prevent enemy units from harassing them or some such thing).

b. The missions are focused on an objective. It's not a 30 minute crawl around the map taking out tons of random patrols. Tangos are where you might expect them to be defending, and getting to the objective is the easy part.

c. They try to force speed sometimes. For things like hostage rescues or other events, I like it when the player is forced to pick up the pace. Care should be taken to reduce the difficulty by placing enemies in less vulnerable positions so that the player is not discouraged from moving quickly.

3. Make the missions a little more story-driven. This does not mean you need a huge long briefing or backstory, but add story-based events in-game. In a hostage mission for instance, have them move the hostage to a more defensible position if you're detected.

4. This goes back to my 2c point, but one of the missions I wanted to create before was a mission that was a building/complex takedown that HIGHLY encouraged the player to be quick - like 5-10 minutes. One way is simply to flood guys from the outside based on time spent inside the building/complex. Another way might be to have several of the enemy "off-duty" (ie - without weapons), who must go to a specific building to "pick up" weapons before heading to their defensive positions. Unfortunately, because GR didn't support flashbangs or anything similar, moving quickly through a building is very dangerous in GR. But there should be some way to make it become more difficult the longer the player is inside the building/complex.

5. I was looking over a few of the missions I never completed before I left and one that I really like was one I was developing for a theoretical coop sniper/spotter competition. The player was working for the CIA and had to make an urban hit on a warlord who was, for political reasons, receiving DEVGRU protection at that moment - so you had to get into place secretly, make a very difficult shot, and then get out before they tracked you down. I had friendly embassy security, DEVGRU and journalists that really muddied the battlefield. I'd like to see more missions like this where you are not given such a free-fire reign, but the sneaking around shouldn't be too difficult or else players will just learn the "correct" sneaking route, by failing and quick-loading until they try just the right combination (we all remember games where, after dying 30 times, we know it by heart: move to that barrel, wait for guy to walk by, move to bush, wait for second guy to walk by, etc. It should be easy enough for a careful player to get it on their first or second try with a little luck.)

6. Take on an enemy with decent technology. Punish the player for running in open areas with artillery bombardments or some such thing.

7. Make it worthwhile to sneak past some tangos and shoot up others. For most missions it's better just to kill what you see so you don't have to deal with them later. That gets boring.